Principal's Message

I would like to thank the community and particularly the students for another productive week at school. The classroom routines have been set in the first few weeks of school and the focus on academic progress and explicit teaching of wellbeing strategies is taking shape.

In this Principal's Message you can read about:

1. Teacher Professional Learning
2. Managing Bullying 
3. Attendance
4. Head Lice
5. School Council
6. Fundraising
7. Multiplication Madness Challenge ( student choice to participate) 

1. Teacher Professional Learning

As a team we have embarked on extensive professional learning via the School Wide Positive Behaviour initiative ( SWPBS) to complement and enhance our Positive Education Model. This is a 3 - 5 year journey that will support the students at our school by increasing the clarity around behaviours and expectations, ensuring that these are explicitly taught and in turn impact on the success in learning and experiencing positive wellbeing.

SWPBS is a systems approach heavily supported by evidence and the DET Victoria for establishing the social, cultural and individualised supports needed for all students to achieve both social and academic success. It is a way to support everyone to create the kinds of schools where all students are successful and included.

The purpose of SWPBS is to help our school select and identify the effective, efficient, and evidence-based things we can do to support all students to experience success. SWPBS enables us to organise those practices into a continuum; from universal support for all students through to intensive, targeted support for those who need it.

Evidence-based features of SWPBS include:

• prevention
• defining and teaching positive social expectations
• acknowledging positive behaviour
• arranging consistent responses to challenging behaviour
• maintaining ongoing collection and use of data for decision-making
• establishing a continuum of interventions
• utilising team-based implementation (systems that support effective practices)

Added to this our Principal Team ( Rachael and Daniel) along with our team leaders in all year levels and the Specialist team ( Mrs McIntyre, Mrs Rogan, Mr Sands, Mr O'Leary, 

Ms Comte, Ms Geerings, Mr Lord, Mrs Merrett) will be enhancing our skills in the power of Professional Learning Communities. 

 PLC Core Professional Learning (CPL) aims to build the capacity and skills of School Leaders (Principals and Instructional Leaders). This improves the learning and wellbeing outcomes for every student through a consistent approach to disciplined, collaborative inquiry. Informed by the latest research and contextualised within the aims and intent of the Education State and the Framework for Improving School Outcomes (FISO 2.0), the professional learning focusses on the the way of working' for all teachers to improve practice, knowledge, and attitudes and to collectively work together to improve student outcomes.

Both of these initiatives are explicitly linked to the areas of improvement we are targeting for our students that centre around School Climate and Academic Emphasis. Our targets focus on improving student growth and achievement and student confidence as well as areas linked to student safety, including Managing Bullying

Read more about SWPBS in the Wellbeing Section pf the Newsletter

2. Managing Bullying

A key focus, based on student data, is to ensure clarity around how bullying is managed at school as well as teacher concern. Managing bullying is important to us, bullying can often be debated and by definition is:

It’s being mean to someone over and over again.

Bullying is an ongoing or repeated misuse of power in relationships, with the intention to cause deliberate (on purpose) psychological harm. Bullying behaviours can be verbal, physical or social.

Bullying can happen anywhere – at home, online, with friends, in a group, on the bus or at school. (KIDS Help Line Definition) 

My belief, although I agree with the definition, is that bullying is also about how people feel about a situation. 

The key for our school to manage bullying, with the aim to stop the bullying in its tracks, restore relationships and create an environment of safety for all students, families and staff, is COMMUNICATION. 

We encourage all students and families to contact us immediately if a student feels bullied or you are concerned about something and unsure of what to do. In the first instance we will be encouraging your children to communicate with their teacher or another adult at the school they can trust - that can includes me as well. 

At assembly I will be rehearsing the ICI strategy with the students that you can help them use outside of school as well. It stands for 

Ignore 

Confront

Inform

This three step process will give the students time to process a situation and see if it is a one off or if something continues.

For Example: 

A student gets called a hurtful name. Initially IGNORE

A few days later the same person/group does it again CONFRONT: l - " Daniel, you  called me a  .....on Monday and now you've done it again. I don't want you to do it anymore, its your last chance to stop otherwise I am telling............" I would encourage the student to let their teacher know they have done this so if it resurfaces there is s record.

A couple of weeks later, it happens again: " Daniel, I told you a while ago to stop doing this to me but you are not listening I have to INFORM Mrs Kebbell, who knows that I have given you 2 chances to stop this. I don't want you to get in trouble but I am going to have to ask her to help sort this out.

At this point the adult supporting the Bullied person will make a decision using our Behaviour flowchart about how to progress ( i have sent this out in previous Newsletters and my Compass Post)

NB: Any physical aggression or any vilifying/aggressive language must be reported to a staff member immediately. This will be escalated to a member of the leadership team.

In closing though - I am confident in the climate at the school and overall behaviour and kindness our students show and we want to maximise and acknowledge their strengths while ensuring their safety and confidence at school is maximised. 

3. Attendance

I will continue to draw attention to the importance of attendance this year to encourage you to support your child's academic and social/emotional growth by maximising attendance. Our aim needs to be a school average of 10 days or less absence from school per student. In the past I have acknowledged attendance formally and will begin to do this monthly. The focus will be on attendance for the month and contribute to an overall acknowledgement at the end of each semester at a class and house level. I will stress however that I do understand it is a balancing act and if your child is too sick to come to school common sense must prevail.

4. Head Lice

Unfortunately, headlice has already surfaced this year in year one and year three. 

The best preventative measures:

Tie long hair back firmly All children with shoulder length or longer hair will be asked to tie their hair as our GOLD STANDARD. We would prefer this was organised at home prior to school. 

Avoid making hair to hair contact (this is how the lice travel most effectively) 

Regular checks at home when possible.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Importantly We will be very mindful of not creating a stigma around headlice and ensuring full confidentiality for those inconvenienced.   

  Schools are not permitted to complete physical Headlice checks on students but can support prevention via visual checks. Despite this the most effective checks are done at home. If we are notified of or notice Headlice in a particular class we will notify parents/carers via Compass to ensure you can check your child's hair. 

I will add further detail after our March School Council meeting regarding headlice checks and a reshape of the whole school policy/procedure.

5. School Council 

With School Council nominations coming to a close I would like to thank the following community members for their effort to nominate and congratulate them on their appointment to School Council: Michael Rhook Elisha Hastie, Kristy Waldron, Rachael Fleury and Lucy Coventry ( Addition since last week's Compass Post).  

You can find out more about School Council at School Council — Overview: Overview | education.vic.gov.au

Our First School Council Meeting will be: MARCH 15th 5: 30pm start

6. Fundraising

We have a very committed group of community members who lead the way with fundraising. Keeping in mind that we know how generous the community is, with already more than 60% of families contributing the full voluntary payment amount mentioned previously, we are mindful of the opportunities for further fundraising and do not want to create an expectation around this and offer gratitude for any support offered. Below is what to look out for an upcoming Hamper Raffle and Hot Cross Bun Drive.

It is important that you are clear in understanding the priorities that the fundraising will go towards. This year we are engaging in a whole school approach to phonics and "The Science of Reading." The investment involves extensive Professional Development for the whole staff and replenishing the types of readers that the students have access to. We will be targeting the majority of our fundraising to achieve the implementation of the Science of Reading and purchase the resources to support the significant budget allocated to this exciting initiative.

7. Multiplication Madness Tables Challenge Year 3 - 6 

Automaticity of multiplication tables and number facts is an important skill to have and helps support transition between primary and secondary school. When you have to spend time on what the answer to a is in 7xa = 21 impacts on the fluency and flow of solving maths equations.

I will be encouraging students to Participate in the Multiplication Madness Tables Challenge year 3-6.

Term 1 dates Friday March 3rd and Friday March 24th. (will be repeated each term) 

Students can prepare in a variety of ways: 

•  Using Mathletics or Essential Assessment 
• Use an old school approach and learn by rote (writing out your tables 1- 10 times tables up to 10 to reflect the decimal system. (We don't do 12s anymore that relates to feet and inches etc)
• Practice Speed Grids (there are many online) 
• Use flash cards.

It is important to remember that if you know ONE fact you get 3 for FREE e.g

If you know 6x2 = 12

Freebie 2x6 = 12

Freebie 12/6=2

Freebie 12/2=6 

The challenge will use the speed and accuracy grids each time and could include division or multiplication facts or both.

Acknowledgements include

•  Top 10 speed and Accuracy each year level
•  Top 10 growth and improvement in each year level 
• Reward to effort.

Thank you for taking the time to read the newsletter and enjoy the weekend. Don't forget to check the Community page for news about junior Football, ACES Golf, Junior Netball and the Canteen.

Remember to reach out if you need! barwon.heads.ps@education.vic.gov.au